i have a colleague

Who has Down's Syndrome.

He comes to work every day, on time, on the dot. Always neatly groomed, clothes impeccably pressed. He does his work diligently without getting distracted - yes can use a computer and do simple tasks on spreadsheet. He will sometimes have his lunch in the tea room and chat with one of his colleagues or sometimes go to a nearby cafe to have lunch alone. Sure,  he's not one for crowds but he's part of our team and he earns his wage.  And he goes home to his supported living quarters and has his own social life.

So tell me again:

ITALIAN prosecutors have opened an investigation into a botched selective abortion that the Vatican has described as the result of a "culture of perfection" resembling Nazi eugenics.

The deeply Catholic country was embroiled in a bitter ethical dispute yesterday after it emerged that a surgeon had accidentally terminated a healthy fetus instead of its twin with Down's syndrome.

The operation -- on a 38-year-old woman 18 weeks pregnant -- was performed at the San Paolo hospital in Milan in June but has only now come to light. The fetus with Down's syndrome was subsequently aborted.

The revelation has reignited the debate in Italy over abortion, which was legalised in 1978. The law allows terminations of healthy fetuses up to the 90th day of pregnancy, although abortions can be performed later if there is a risk to the life of the mother or if the fetus is malformed.

Anna Maria Marconi, the gynecologist who carried out the Milan abortion, said the woman, who has not been named, requested the operation after an amniocentesis test.

Professor Marconi said her conscience was clear. The fetuses, which had been identical, had changed positions in the womb between the last scan and the operation, an "act of fate that could not have been foreseen", she said.

The professor was backed by the hospital authorities. The mother, who has a young son, said that her life had been ruined.

"Neither my husband nor I can sleep at night," she told the Corriere della Sera, which first reported the blunder. She said the happiness she and her husband had experienced when they learnt that she was expecting twins had been transformed into heartbreak. Her husband said they were "truly desperate over this terrible mistake" and were consulting family lawyers.

The episode has been seized upon by Catholics campaigning to have the abortion law repealed. L'Osservatore Romano, the Vatican newspaper, said: "No one has the right to suppress another life and take the place of God for any motive whatever." The paper said selective abortion amounted to eugenics, stemming from "a culture of perfection".

The Association of Catholic Doctors said selective abortion was "the fruit of an egoistic culture", while Christian Democrat politician Luca Volonte said the Milan mistake amounted to infanticide.

However, Carlo Flamigni, a leading fertility surgeon and a non-Catholic, argued that repealing the abortion law would be like "closing down all motorways just because now and then someone causes an accident by falling asleep at the wheel".

Why this is not infanticide?  Would you be prepared to chase a baby in a womb around with a needle to inject pottasium chloride into their heart?  Just because you or someone else decided they had no right to live? Or should someone just run over my colleague instead?